Bankers get loans, au pair aid too

Thursday 19 March 2009 08:32 BST

Goldman Sachs has been the greased piglet of this financial meltdown, slithering through every catastrophe and emerging smirking the other side.

So it was satisfying for those of us wailing and gnashing outside the walls of fortress Goldman, where we assumed they were still sleeping and eating on stacks of dollar bills, to hear its partners are hurting. It seems a quarter of them are down to their last $5 million, thanks to the slump of Goldman stock and Goldman-run investment funds to which its employees had special access.

To ease their pain, Goldman this week created a loan scheme aimed at loosening up their cashflow and helping to pay the mortgage on the beach house. But not so fast. Goldman has made a big deal of not needing government handouts. It was smart enough, it claimed, to hedge away the biggest dangers, which befell Lehman, Bear, Citi and Merrill.

In February, it said it wanted to give back the $10 billion it got under the government's troubled asset programme, as the attached strings were too onerous. But we now know Goldman received $12.9 billion via the AIG bailout. It's being called the back-door bailout and the political ramifications could be severe.

Goldman doesn't have its former CEO handing out the candy any more, the way it did with Hank Paulson who served as Treasury Secretary until January. Popular anger against bankers is rising instead of abating, the further we get into this crisis. It wouldn't be surprising to hear more attacks on Goldman for taking its $12.9 billion and lending it to over-extended investment bankers.

If only every homeowner and borrower in the US were so lucky.

* Au Pair in America, a popular nanny service, is responding to decreased demand by offering to refund a pro-rata portion of the upfront $7700 annual programme fee should families want to cut back on child care. Across Manhattan, once-rich parents, now jobless, face a terrifying prospect: raising their own children.

* Michael Bloomberg received legal clearance this week to run for a third four-year term as New York Mayor. He is the city's richest man, worth at least $16 billion, yet can't seem to get enough of unglamorous urban government. Some ask why. I say thanks.